MAGGI PICAYUNE

Even if I didn’t miscalculate, I wouldn’t have been able to catch my stream hitting this milestone song because I had to be at the dentist by 740 AM. How fitting that KMAG played it at 739 AM! Of all the current tunes to choose from by Pat DiNizio, Hives, Josie Cotton and Epoxies, it went with an oldie.

Drum roll please for song number 750,000…

“Rollercoaster” by everything but the girl.

Something good before they went all electronic.

On to 800,000 plays and it may have over 7000 songs at random to pick from. Lately, I’ve been culling out-of-print singles from various sources which is why I love using Amadeus.

I was surprised that Blender was still around when I saw an issue at my dentist last month and thanks to Sivacracy, I found their list of The 20 Biggest Record Company Screw Ups.

Read it first, then come back to my following paragraphs.

I’m not sure what their research was exactly based upon, much of it appears to be opinion. Number 19 is a good theory explaining the “stealing” problem the music industry claims. As for Edison on number 17, the bigger industry-standard loss he made was on DC v. AC. Sony is now gone 1-1 with their victory on Blu-Ray. I completely agree on 16 and 13, Wilco and REM have always been overpriced, boring, pretentious acts the labels miscalculated. Many others are rather esoteric such as Motown’s value or Geffen suing Neil Young for changing styles. The general public is ignorant about which label their favorite acts are on because it’s not very important unless the records are unavailable through the big box stores.

I would add a corollary to number 2 for Decca passing on the Beatles. The Fab Four didn’t learn from their experience neither. When they formed their own label, they opted not to sign David Bowie and went with Harry Nilsson instead.

Lisa was an artist I found rather annoying for the wrong reasons. I foolishly judged a book by its cover.

Back in the Nineties, many people my age would wear retro items that looked rather lame. With Lisa, it was the granny glasses which became her trademark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of her without them. She does have a sense of humor about it because Trey Parker and Matt Stone made a dig about it on VH-1’s I Love the 90s. Despite being the first and only performer to have a number one hit in America without being signed to a label, “Stay” was cute yet disposable, especially the video. I knew I wrote her off; figured she’d be a footnote with Joan Osborne, Jewel and Meredith Brooks.

Years later I got hooked on her single “I Do” from the second album and I remember taking a chance on Cake & Pie at Cheapo (this has since been renamed Hello Lisa). Definitely much better than her rather rushed debut Tails plus it was amusing to hear Dweezil Zappa, her boyfriend at the time, play guitar on it.

I do applaud Lisa for taking chances on other endeavors which is why I think she’ll be remembered unlike the other singers I maligned two paragraphs ago. She does voice acting (Spider-Man cartoon, Rugrats) and has taken a shot at hosting a couple TV shows; the best one was for Food Network when she lived with Dweezil in LA.

Most people who haven’t had a hit single in 14 years would’ve thrown in the towel by now. I do hope Lisa keeps making new records because if she could get a rather jaded music fan like me to reconsider her work, she is pretty talented.

John F and John L keeping the crowd going with their wit. Long-time guitarist Dan Miller is laughing along.

Yet another fine They Might be Giants concert in Austin making this the sixth time I’ve seen them and their fourth appearance at Stubb’s: they now open the show with a song they wrote about the venue. This Spring the Johns are on tour to promote two albums, The Else from last summer, and a new kid record called Here Come the 123s. Last night’s set was a huge mix of music from their entire catalog as a band, at least one song from every album except John Henry, No! and Apollo 18 yet they chose two infamous B-sides. It didn’t really matter, TMBG always changes up the set list enough that I never find them repetitive live. Old favorites “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” “Particle Man,” “Istanbul,” “New York City,” “Ana Ng” and “Why Does the Sun Shine?” remained (most audiences would riot if these were removed) and they performed the stronger singles from The Else: “I’m Impressed,” “The Cap’m,” “The Shadow Government,” “Feign Amnesia,” and “The Mesopotamians.” Special concert shirts highlighting the last song were present. I was excited to see them perform three of the kid tunes because these are entertaining despite being for young children, primarily “One Dozen Monkeys,” the best of the trio.

The band’s current touring drummer was on paternity leave so John F didn’t do his crowd-pleasing phone-tree routine with current drummer Frank imitating different playing styles. Guitarist Dan Miller was around which meant he performed his awesome flamenco-like solo intro to “Instanbul.” I need to check their only live album Severe Tire Damage if this has ever been recorded.

Beyond the music, the Johns were humorous as always. They poked fun at Hannah Montana, Hilary Clinton (I suppose they’re Obama backers) and the recently imposed, earlier curfew on Stubb’s thanks to a new overpriced condo complex being built on 11th Street.

Opening act Oppenheimer did a great job warming up the crowd. These two gentlemen from Belfast were a solid match. They were like TMBG when the Johns first started out; having to play all the instruments and using technology to fill in the missing musicians. Oppenheimer’s material was good but it was more experimental and off the wall making them closer to an Irish version of Ween or pre-1988 Camper Van Beethoven. I still scored their CD since TMBG has only had one poor opener in the half-dozen times I’ve seen them, OK Go being the most famous of the batch.

The band probably conferring before the soundcheck and dinner.

I could’ve pushed my luck on meeting them. I arrived at Stubb’s pretty early and the Johns walked by me while I was killing time snacking at the bar. But I didn’t want to be a nuisance during their pre-show “me time.” I know how irked I feel when I’m interrupted in the middle of prepping. It wouldn’t have been fair to the paying attendees neither since I was there for free as an Ecology Action volunteer too. So much for good karma. I locked myself out of my car during the process of swapping batteries on the camera later. Poor Somara had to drive downtown in the middle of her baking to bail me out. I didn’t let it sour the entire evening, I originally thought I lost the additional battery which costs 50 bucks.